Lessons from a Difficult Person + Giveaway

Book Details:
Book Title:  Lessons from a Difficult Person: How to Deal with People Like Us
Author:  Sarah H. Elliston
​Category:  Adult Non-fiction, 176 pages
Genre:  Self-help / Relationships
Publisher:  CreateSpace
Release date:  November 30, 2016
Tour dates:  Jan 30 to Feb 17, 2017
Content Rating:  G 

Book Description:

The funny thing is that Sarah Elliston never realized she was “a difficult person,” -- someone who harangued people until she got her way, threw snip fits and temper tantrums, talked over her bosses and pointed out what she thought were their misconceptions. In her family, where she felt bullied, the only way she knew how to get someone’s attention and approval was to voice her opinion—and loudly! Without standing her ground, how could she do what she thought was best for herself and everyone around her. She wasn’t intentionally mean-spirited. She was just trying to do what she thought was RIGHT!

Until a kind, but firm, boss woke her up! With great compassion, and strength, her boss pointed out that that her actions had consequences. That in being “difficult,” she was not only disrupting the office camaraderie and production, but impeding her own professional advancement.

That’s the beginning of Sarah’s transformation— when she started on the journey to leave behind the difficult person, and become the woman who teaches others how to deal with difficult people. Sam Elliston is now bringing forth her vital manual on how to awaken the challenging personality, and change both the relationship and the environment, with her new book Dealing with Difficult People; Lessons Learned from a Difficult Person.

Today, Elliston is a highly successful workshop leader and trainer, who offers wisdom learned the hard way—by experience – as well as through rigorous study and certification in many areas of professional training that aid her in her work -- Values Realization, Parent Effectiveness Training and Reality Therapy. She is a faculty member of the William Glasser Institute. Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist and developer of Reality Therapy, a method of psychotherapy that teaches people they have a choice in how they choose to behave.

The methods Elliston offers in her book end the trauma and the drama, and minimize the possibility of confrontation. She gives YOU, the reader, the ability to take a strong, positive, confident—yet compassionate--stance with the “difficult person”—whether that is a relative, coworker, friend, one of your children or anyone else for that matter.

Elliston demonstrates how to:

• Identify the ways to talk to a “difficult” person
• Incorporate true incentives to help people change
• Make real the consequences of the “difficult” person’s action
• Increase success through acceptance and belonging
• Avoid being triggered by the “difficult” person allowing you to neutralize those hot buttons and communicate without judgment

Elliston lays out a proven script for peacefully transforming the difficult person’s behavior and the environment. She gives you the tools for successfully initiating and engaging in a conversation with a difficult person that would lead to change.

Buy the Book:  Amazon

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Meet the Author:

Sarah (Sam) Elliston is an expert in the art of Dealing with Difficult People. She is a top workshop leader and a member of the faculty of the William Glasser Institute, which espouses “Reality Therapy” to foster behavioral change.

But her instructional career began long before she even became aware that she was herself a “difficult person,” traits that began in Lincoln MA, where she grew up. For more than 30 years she has been teaching and training, first as a high school teacher in Ohio and Cincinnati—and then as an administrator in the notfor-profit sector.

Elliston, who holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Maine and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University, spent 23 years with United Way’s Volunteer Center, coordinating volunteers for city government, training local volunteer coordinators and board volunteers, and managing the volunteer program for United Way.

While at United Way, she developed and managed a certificate-earning series on volunteer management with Northern Kentucky University and The Union Institute. She also taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in Volunteer Program Management at Northern Kentucky University.

Her career at United Way included initiating and managing the Municipal Volunteer Program -- Volunteer Cincinnati -- for 15 years. In addition, she worked closely with nonprofit agencies to empower their volunteer programs and boards of trustees and served on the Executive Committee of the Cincinnati Association of Volunteer Administrators. She has presented at the International Conference on Volunteer Administration, the Conference for National and Community Service and regional and state conferences in Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa, New York, Michigan and Illinois. She is a Certified Volunteer Administrator, the highest level of professional certification in the field.

In addition to her work as a volunteer administrator, Elliston pursued a course of study that would bring her to her current area of expertise. She is now certified in Values Realization, Parent Effectiveness Training and Reality Therapy. She has served as a board member and president of the Values Realization Institute.

Elliston’s passion is training and designing an experience that allows learners to find a process that works for them to make the changes they desire. She is a gentle, persistent, humorous and intelligent trainer, drawing from many sources and always willing to admit that she might not know the answer.

Connect with the author:  Website  ~  Twitter  ~  Facebook  

Blog interview with Sarah H. Elliston 

Author of Lessons from a Difficult Person; how to deal with People like us 

 

 

Tell us about your latest book. 

My book is about how I discovered that I was (and may still be) a difficult person and why I think folks have trouble talking to difficult people about the difficult behaviour.  It is somewhat about me but mostly about what a person can do to have a conversation with the difficult person in his or her life.  It is an attempt to give readers a reference guide, a resource to manage the difficult, challenging people.   

 

Did you learn anything from writing that surprised you about people?  

 

I don’t know why it surprised me but I was struck at how kind people are.  I discovered the number of ways people had tried to tell me that I was bugging them and others and I just couldn’t hear them.  I know in some cases I was defensive and scornful that people found me troubling.  They didn’t fire me and they continued to care for me.  I wrote the book because I thought we needed a pattern, a process to think about having the conversation so the difficult person WOULD be able to hear the information.  I hadn’t realized how many people had tried with me.   

 

What genre do you write and why? 

 

I find expository writing is interesting and not as hard as fiction.  It can go in many directions but one can always go back and structure it.  It allows for personal examples, and people like to read the personal stories. I have written poetry and attempted a short story but dialogue really stumped me.  I like to have writing teach something.  Ironically, I read tons of fiction.   

 

 What are you currently reading?  

 

I love reading detective and action fiction and it helps to have a romantic twist in the plot somewhere.  I just finished John Maxim’s Whistler’s Angel and I love all of his books, especially The Bannerman Solution.  I find myself reading books over and over to experience the intricacies of the plot and character.  Other favorite authors are Leon Uris, P J Tracy, Robert Crais and John Lescroart.   

 

What is your work in progress? Tell us about it. 

 

I am drafting ideas about how I became a less difficult person.  Many readers have asked how I actually changed and how they can change themselves.  I was startled to discover that many of my readers saw themselves in the difficult person I described in the book so I am making lists and writing down experiences that I remember.  I don’t know if they are reproducible experiences and I think there are a lot of books about change already written so I don’t know how it will turn out.  I know it will have exercises for the reader to complete as the first one does.  I’m a teacher by trade and can’t stop inviting people to get engaged themselves.   

Check out the Giveaway here